Month: July 2004

Well, last night there was a duststorm which pretty much ruined my attempts at photography. Today it’s raining. This bad boy is the reason for the foul weather. My island (Awajishima) is located right under the eye of the storm shown in the last frame of the animation.
I’ll attempt to take more photos tonight, but I’m afraid they won’t turn out as well as I had hoped.
UPDATE: We got totally rained out. Life sucks. Lileks, stand down.

Our trip to Kochi was partly accidental; it started with a flat tire that I needed to replace. Kochi was the largest city around, we had thought about going earlier, and I knew there would be an open tire shop there if we hurried.
The local >Autobacs was indeed open, so while I negotiated for a pair of Dunlops, Nam used my laptop to look for a good hotel online. We stayed in the Comfort Hotel (related to the comfort Inn chain) in front of Kochi Station, which I would link except that their air conditioning really sucks (I think this is a large factor in how they keep their prices down), and this is an unforgivable sin in the heat of the Japanese summer. They are a new hotel and a deluxe double went for 8,000 yen, so I might try staying there in the spring or fall.
Anyhow, we checked into the hotel and went looking for a likely place to eat and wind down. Lo and behold, there was a little robata-yaki place next to our hotel, where you are served by the hosts with a long wooden paddle. The food was excellent – local and fresh.
Story continued in the extended entry…

Tonight and tomorrow I will be taking photos of the Awa Dance here in Sumoto. If you are a Minnesotan named James Lileks who once wrote about the Awa Dance on your kick-ass site (The Bleat) quite fondly, or even if you aren’t, please check out the photos someday. I’ll try to make it worth your time, even if I’m not nearly worthy.
Some keyword obscuria, because history repeats itself:Japanese dancehands above

Brought to you by the “Don’t Do Drugs Cuz It’s Cool and Cute Japanese Chicks Dig It” Foundation.
Note: I finished editing photos from our trip to Kochi prefecture today, but don’t have time to write the post. This photo didn’t really fit in with the others, so I’m posting it alone first. This poster was inside a sealed bulletin board in front of a police station. Needless to say, whoever designed it must have been smoking crack. Then again, maybe that’s the whole point… Not.

Since he will be leaving soon, Adam wanted to take a picture with this nice waitress at the restaurant, but she was camera shy and refused. So I had to sneak a shot. Click. Another soul stolen for the sake of western civ.

On Monday, after saying farewell to Adam, Merin, Matt, and Kuniko in downtown Fukuoka, I jumped in a taxi and headed to the airport. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the cabbie was a woman. This was a first for me, so I took full advantage of it and we had a long conversation all the way to the airport. She told me that she’d been a cabbie for twelve years, and the conversation kind of blossomed from there; she was one of those old pros that have interesting stories to tell, and drive a cab because it’s their calling in life.
That wasn’t the only nice thing about this cab ride, however. She knew the streets really well. At one point, approaching a long line of cars, she pulled a U-turn and drove through a housing area where the streets were so narrow there was no room for pedestrians – so she honked at them and they scurried into their little nooks and crannies! My kind of driver.
The fare was 2,090 yen. I gave her three 1,000 yen notes and told her to keep the change. It made her so happy, she almost started crying, in that “grateful grandmother” type of way.
As they say, sometimes it’s not where you’re going, but how you get there. What a great way to end my stay.

Growing up in Orange County, California, my parents must have taken me to Disneyland at least two or three times a year. I loved the hell out of the submarine ride, the Jungle Cruise, the Pirates of the Caribbean. Hell, I even remember at time when Captain E.O. was some impressive shit, and Star Tours – wow, when that came out, it kind of sent a big “fuck you” to all the other rides as far as sophistication goes. Yeah, I remember loving the Magic Kingdom even after we moved away to Ventura County (Camarillo and Ojai). Somewhere around high school, however, the thrill wore off. Perhaps I had overdosed on the experience, or maybe I just grew out of it. Today, I am an official Disneyland Hater. In California, as well as the vast majority of Japan, this is equivalent to being a grouchy old hermit. People cannot understand why I hate Disneyland (and I really hate it; last time I went there I almost punched out an obnoxious fucker who accused us of cutting in line in front of his kid).
Well, this may seem like a trivial thing to wrote about, but it got me to thinking again today when I saw this article (link picked up from Boing Boing):http://www.miceage.com/allutz/al072704a.htm
The pertinent point is the fact that the Jungle Book staff no longer pack cap guns with which to ward off the angry hippo. I went to D-land at the end of last year for the first time in ages, so I could take my girlfriend (who is Thai and had never gone) and hang out with my younger cousins for a day. After the Nighmare Before Christmas-themed Haunted House experience was tainted by the “line cutting” incident mentioned above, I couldn’t help but notice the Politically Correct buttfuckery achieved at the Pirates of the Caribbean – wenches chasing pirates instead of the original, perhaps more believable and historically accurate, pirates chasing wenches (for the express purpose of raping, BTW) – and this was kind of laughable, since a lot of Californians are prude PC fuckheads and this type of shit is expected. But. When I saw that the Jungle Cruise had also fallen victim to the PC mindset, I nearly blew a gasket. For Christ’s sake, the cap guns were the high point of the whole fucking ride! I’m not the only one to think so, am I?
What the fuck could possibly be accomplished by deleting the climax of the Jungle Cruise? Why was it done? Are the lawyers afraid that some kid would go on a rampage with a single action reveolver, slaughtering innocent hippopotami, and then sue the park, or what? This is absolute epitome of lawyer bullshit!
My message to the idiots in charge of the park is as follows:
REARM THE JUNGLE CRUISE STAFF, ASSHOLES!
YO-HO YO-HO UNPUSSIFY THE PIRATES FOR ME!
AND BRING BACK THE SUBMARINE RIDE, IDIOTS!
If you can accomplish these three things, I will hate Disneyland a little less. And by “I,” I mean, “most of us.”
Update: Check out the Disney Blog.

They really do.
I confirmed it today when they forgot to tell me about the “lithium leak” drill scheduled in the office next door. What happens is, well, they simulate a spill of hazardous substances. So when a man in a white space suit stormed into our office, I naturally thought he was coming for me.
“You’ll never catch me alive, copper!,” I screamed, and brandished a stapler most menacingly. Well, no. Actually, I just sat there in amazement and stared. Nobody else around me seemed to react much at all, even when he shouted, “ALL CLEAR!,” and stomped on down the hall.
Since no explanations were forthcoming from my coworkers, I have decided that it probably didn’t really happen. Somebody must have spiked my bottled water with psilocybin or something. I guess they’ve learned how much I hate the first mind-numbing day back at work after an extended weekend. How sweet.

This is the best restaurant in Kyushu, Yokayokatei. Everything from bibinba noodles to tonkatsu, teppan yaki, and raw horse sashimi – all divine. Plus, we were stared by the people at the next table for speaking in English, so I conspicuously picked my nose and flicked boogers in their general direction.